Biographical Sketch
ZAFRA M. LERMAN
phone: (312) 344-7180 fax: (312) 344-8051
Zafra Lerman is Distinguished Professor of Science and Public Policy, and Head of the Institute for Science Education and Science Communication at Columbia College Chicago.
She received her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, and conducted research in isotope effects at Cornell University, Northwestern University, and at the Swiss Polytechnic in Zurich, Switzerland.
Prof. Lerman developed an innovative approach of teaching science to non-science majors, which has received national and international recognition. She has been invited to lecture on her methods all over the U.S. and in many other countries, including Brazil, Turkey, Hungary, Australia, England, Russia, Germany, Mexico, China, Japan, Taiwan, Cuba, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa and Israel. She has received over $6,000,000 in the past few years to work with Chicago inner-city teachers, parents and students.
For the past 20 years, she has worked tirelessly on behalf of dissidents all over the world. She chairs the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Human Rights for the American Chemical Society (ACS). At great risk to her personal safety, she has worked within the Soviet Union, China and other countries and has succeeded in preventing executions, releasing prisoners of conscience from jail and bringing dissidents into freedom.
In 2001, she started working toward peace in the Middle East; it is her belief that scientists can succeed where politicians have failed. She is the chair of the organizing committee for a series of conferences designed to use science as a bridge to peace in the Middle East. These conferences, which were her brainchild, bring together scientists from 14 Middle East countries (including Israel, Iran, Iraq and the Palestinian Authority) as well as several Nobel laureates to work together on solving regional problems, establishing cross-border collaborations, and forging relationships that bridge chasms of distrust and intolerance.
Prof. Lerman received the 1998 American Chemical Society Award for Encouraging Disadvantaged Students into Careers in the Chemical Sciences. In 1999 she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring from President Clinton.
In 2000 she was presented with the World Cultural Council's Jose Vasconcelos World Award for Education in Johannesburg, South Africa (the first international award presented in the new democratic South Africa), and in February 2001, she was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
She is the 2002 awardee for the James Flack Norris Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Teaching of Chemistry from the American Chemical Society - Northeastern Section, and is the 2003 recipient of the American Chemical Society's Charles Lathrop Parsons Award in recognition of outstanding public service to chemistry.
The Royal Society of Chemistry in England awarded her with the 2005 Ronald Nyholm Lectureship - Education Division Award, and the New York Academy of Sciences presented her with the 2005 Heinz Pagels Human Rights for Scientists Award.
Most recently, she has been named to receive the 2007 George Brown Award for International Scientific Cooperation from the U.S. Civilian Research & Development Foundation (CRDF), an award established by the U.S. Congress.
She has also been featured by newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations around the world.
Prof. Lerman remains very active professionally with national and international associations in the fields of science, science education, and scientific freedom and human rights. It remains Dr. Lerman's tenet that free and equal access to science education is a basic human right that belongs to all.